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Special Events 2012

23 November 2012 to 22 February 2013

Alan Turnbull: The Dresden Archive Project

An exhibition of documentary photographs, collages & prints

The Dresden Archive Project, a work by artist Alan Turnbull, is an act of remembrance of the Dresden that was lost in a firestorm at the end of the Second World War. The archive itself is a collection of images which celebrate the city’s history - postcards, photographs and printed ephemera relating to Dresden, beginning around 1870 when Saxony still had its own King, and ending in the 1950’s , with Dresden, a ruined city, passing to Soviet control. Close scrutiny of even routine looking postcards can reveal figures emerging from the shadows, faces peeping out of windows, or a human presence largely hidden and obscured in a retouched photograph. These are the incidental traces of life which bring poignancy to these images; a poignancy which is increased by our knowledge of the changes that were to come.

7 November (5.30pm)

Gerda Henkel Visiting Professorship LectureANDREAS RÖDDER: From Kaiser Wilhelm to Chancellor Merkel. The German Question on the European Stage

The German Question has kept Europe in suspense for more than a century. It appeared to have eventually been solved by German unification and through the integration of the D-Mark – the German “atomic bomb” – into the European Monetary Union. However, after losing two world wars and a third of its territory, having committed the holocaust and expelled huge numbers of its elites, after Europeanising central elements of its power and yet being strained by the economical impact of reunification, Germany is once more suspected of aspiring to supremacy.

The lecture will follow the twisted story of Germany in Europe since the late19th century. In particular it will analyse the connection between German reunification and the decision to introduce the Euro in order to highlight the current “German question” from a historical perspective.

Andreas Rödder holds the chair for Contemporary History at the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz (Germany). He has published books on the mid 19th-century English Conservatives, in German foreign politics in the interwar period as well as on Germany in the 1970s and 80s and at last on German reunification.

Venue: New Theatre, EAS.E171, East BuildingLondon School of EconomicsAldwych, London WC2A 2AE

11 July 2012 to 12 August 2012

Exhibition "Tracksuit Traitors"

East German Elite Athletes on the Run

Between 1949 and 1989, more than 3 million people left the German Democratic Republic, many illegally and under dangerous circumstances. Sport, an area which was strongly promoted by the SED regime to improve its international reputation, was seriously affected by this. Hundreds of top athletes turned their backs on East Germany, looking for a new future in the ideologically defamed West. Fleeing the republic turned them into ‘traitors’ in the eyes of the political leadership, and their flight thus became a highly political issue.

This exhibition, designed by Zentrum deutsche Sportgeschichte (ZdS) and the exhibition agency exhibeo, presents the stories of eight athletes who managed to flee from the GDR. Their stories, captured at a moment of remembering, are told in video installations by the Mexican artist Laura Soria.

4 May 2012 to 29 June 2012

Exhibition "Germans and Fun?"

German Satirical Cartoons on Current News by Greser&Lenz

Do Germans have a sense of humour? The exhibition shows a specially chosen selection of cartoons by the German cartoonist duo Greser&Lenz. The satirical cartoons are dealing with topics from German, British and international current news and with current political and social debates. They illustrate a German view of the world and a very German sense of humour.

Achim Greser and Heribert Lenz are two renowned German cartoonists working for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - one of the biggest German daily newspapers - , the newsmagazine Stern and the satirical magazine Titanic.

3 November 2011 to 27 January 2012

Exhibition "Faces of the Peaceful Revolution 1989/90"

Photographs by Dirk Vogel

The exhibition composed by the Robert-Havemann-Gesellschaft based on the photographs by Dirk Vogel portrays people from different regional, professional, political and social backgrounds, all connected by their struggle for democracy and a free and self-determined life in the GDR. Some of them were politically active for decades in the East or the West. They were all pioneers and protagonists in the social change of 1989–90. The portraits are complemented by biographical texts highlighting the individual’s part in the revolution.